The Scientific Method

Dear everyone who is still reading after my ridiculously long previous post,

This one is not going to be any better. I've talked (typed? written?) about the special end-of-year events; now, I think, it's time for the basics. Despite the fact that we're all increasingly uninterested in it, school seems determined to go on. Some of the teachers are relentlessly trying to actually make us do work, explaining 'I wouldn't turn up to your house a week before the holidays end and make you do Maths, would I?' (yes, this was a Maths teacher. Surprise, surprise, surprise). Others appear to be just as bored as we are and are just relying on old Wheel of Fortune episodes to keep us mildly interested until we can all finally make our escape. Some are celebrating the year's end - in Gwen's tutor group, for example, her tutor finally came good on the promises she's been making all year and brought them in four cakes at once. Or in Mr W's case - he's been seen headbanging in his classroom throughout recess, although this isn't celebration so much as his normal behaviour.

At any rate, I thought it could be an interesting experiment, to write down what all my different and varying teachers are doing to commemorate or commiserate the year's end. I'll begin with Science, which is my worst subject, and move down in no particular order, as befits the Scientific Method (bearing in mind that I have no idea what the scientific method actually is, I just thought it sounded good. I asked Gwen once and she said 'It means trying things with experiments and testing, and, you know, not using that wacky logic they taught us about in RAVE.' I still have no idea). And so here is:

A LESLIE M. HARPER ™ LIST:

End-of-year subjects

Science

So, Science. My very favourite subject of all, if you take favourite to mean 'least favourite', which most people don't. I've had a lot of good Science moments over time. The time in Year Seven, for example, when I forgot how you were meant to label forces and drew all the arrows in the wrong direction on my test. The time in Year Eight when I had a bonding experience with Shoelace and Peanut (whom I had barely spoken to before) over a weird chemical reaction we christened 'Pudgy'. That other time in Year Eight I was boiling hydrochloric acid and nearly burnt Peanut's face off. That other time in Year Eight Peanut and I decided to make caramel with a bunsen burner. Year Nine, when I forgot to turn the gas off after an experiment involving flames. Year Ten, when Bob Dylan forgot to turn the gas off at the tap and set her hair on fire. Also Year Ten, when Falcon spilled both sulfuric acid AND hydrochloric acid on himself in the space of five minutes. And those are just the ones I remember - I'm sure there are plenty I've expunged from my memory, probably with good reason. This week was my last week of Science EVER. In our last lesson, we did experiments (during which Falcon did the acid thing I wrote about above), and, when we'd put everything back and Falcon had washed his hands enough that we were fairly confident he wasn't going to suffer significant damage, we received our grades. I got a B. Falcon got a B. Gwen, however, was being stubborn, and refusing to find out her mark. This frustrated me somewhat - she's topped the class in most, if not all, of the sciences we've done this year, and I wanted to know what she'd gotten for Chemistry.

LESLIE (L): Just go and find out what you got.

GWEN (G): Leslie, I'm busy.

L: It's not hard, you just have to go up and ask him what you got.

G: Be quiet. I'm trying to work out my unit score.

L: BUT IF YOU GO AND ASK HIM HE WILL TELL YOU YOUR UNIT SCORE.

G: Why are you so keen to find out?

(Pause)

L: I want to know if you topped Science or not.

G: I won't have done, look; if my unit score is the same as this, it's quite low.

L: But that's not your unit score! He has your unit score!

G: You know, I think I might be happier not knowing.

L: No, you wouldn't. Incidentally, you're still wearing your apron from the prac.

G: Oh, right.

L: If I put it away for you will you find out your score?

G: No.

L: Right.

(I begin to strangle Gwen with the apron).

G: Stop . . . LESLIE, STOP THAT!

(Obviously I wasn't strangling very hard, as she was still able to talk. There's something for any of the readers who are shocked by violence - then again, I know most of you, and that's not many of you)

L: FIND OUT YOUR GRADE!

G: All right, all right!

And she did. Except I've now forgotten what it was. Clearly it made a big impact on me.

And that was my last lesson of Science. Something I certainly won't miss. Possibly, we could now have a minute of silence for everyone who is going on to do Science next year. Or you could just keep reading.

Maths

For the end of term, we've all been split up into different maths classes. We go into the Maths that we opted to do in Senior School - in most cases, at least. So General students do a kind of pre-General class, Apps do pre-Apps, and Methods do pre-Methods. Trouble however, arises over Spec A & B. To the best of my knowledge, only about thirteen students are enrolled in the Spec B (i.e. double Maths) class next year, and about forty or fifty want to do Spec A. Obviously this leads to fairly uneven classes. So those who make important decisions around the school have decided to scoop up the creme de la creme of the Spec A class and stick them all in Spec B for these last couple of weeks. I, unfortunately, was one of those few. And I have no idea what's going on.

I'm not sure how many people know this, but I'm currently doing a Maths enrichment course, along with three other people in my year (Eggleston, Reedy, and Tree), which I got into accidentally after getting an unprecedented High Distinction in a test (in fact, it's the Maths test mentioned in the second half of my post 'Tales of Mocktails and the Fail Whale'). Every Friday, I sit there for an hour and a half, listening in amazement to smarter people (almost all of whom are Asian boys, Eggleston included). Recently - the day before yesterday, in fact - I had to do a four-hour Maths test as part of this enrichment process. I worked for about half an hour in total over the course of the test, and spent two hours gazing at the questions and wondering desperately about incircles and arcs and how to prove that when a circle has 2N points on it making arcs of length 1 and the points are joined in pairs, making N number of chords, N is even (I just drew a picture of a circle and left it at that). After two and a half hours I couldn't stand it any more and skipped out. Eggleston, damn him, left after an hour and a half, because he was actually finished. 'Goodbye, peeps,' he said as he exited cheerfully. I've never wanted to throttle someone more (except for the Gwen incident mentioned above, obviously).

Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that you could take any moment of those two and a half hours and the the feeling I was experiencing would be basically the same as how I feel in Spec B Maths. Luckily, as I've mentioned above, it was only for a couple of weeks, but still.

As it was for the end of term and we had no set syllabus, our teacher let us suggest what we wanted to do. He wasn't that keen on most of our ideas. 'Look, you're the top class, I'm not going to let you play with blocks for today's lesson.'

Still, we've finished now - no more axioms, factorials or proofs by subtraction until next year - and unless I get into the Maths enrichment program again, I should be essentially safe.

English

Shakespeare isn't all that relevant to what we've been studying in English, but I thought I'd put his picture in as my English icon anyway because (a) the alternative was a picture of Jack Nicholson in 'One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest' and (b) it relates to a conversation I was having with Peanut the other day, and I'm not going to let her forget that in a hurry.

Let me set the scene: we were wandering around the Year 10 locker area. All the posters for Year 10 Shakespeare were up - this year, they've called it 'Freakspeare'. Peanut and I stopped  briefly to look at one of the posters - which featured, among other things, a picture of Shakespeare.

'Why are the pictures of Shakespeare always so blurry?' complained Peanut.

'Well, they're paintings,' I pointed out.

'Yeah, but none of the pictures I've ever seen of Shakespeare have been good quality,' she said.

I considered this. 'Well, there were some photographs taken of him during his early career as an actor, but they were lost some time during the seventeenth century.' (Obviously I wasn't being serious. I mean, you've probably already realised that, but I have to prepare for every eventuality; after all, Shoelace reads this).

Peanut thought about this. 'That would make sense. I did an assignment about how nobody knew what he looked like, so if the photographs of him were lost . . .'

She paused.

'Wait a second! They didn't have photographs in the seventeenth century!'

That was a truly golden moment.

Anyway, English is one of the few subjects I take in which the teacher has sensibly realised that there's no point in making us do work, and instead lets us watch movies. My English teacher was actually on Wheel of Fortune once, as was her husband (although they were on different episode). So she brought in the episode she was in - at least, so she thought. Turns out what she actually brought in was the tape of her husband's stint on the program. Which would be fine, except that they're currently going through a divorce. I've always quite liked Wheel of Fortune - at least, from what I can remember of it, I liked it - but somehow it's for more entertaining when your English teacher occasionally pauses it on a freeze-frame of her husband and makes obscene hand gestures at the screen. I think I'm going to miss high school English.

French

For the end of high school French - for some people, although not for me, their last lesson of French EVER - we made a newspaper. Each (well, both, there are only two of them) French class made one. My class contains Skeith, Midgie, and Hitler, as well as Comet, Lyssy, PC, Graziella, Ram, and S-Man (we're a pretty small class). Each of us tackled a certain part. Midgie wrote an article about music. This gave me an excuse to bring my blue iPod into class, as I'm basically the only person in the class who has any French music. Not that we listened to that much French music: whenever the teacher left the room Midgie and I would just watch Chaser videos. Still, we both managed to get our articles written in time. Mine was a film review, I wrote about the seventh Harry Potter. I'd tried to get some quotes about it from the friends I went to see it with last Sunday (something I'll write about in more detail in my next post), but unfortunately one of those friends was Vyvyan, whose idea of a useful quote (when I asked her what her favourite part of the film was) was 'OH MY GOD! When that snake jumped out and Peanut full-on freaked out and kicked me!' (and yes, that is an exact quote - I was recording it. I'm going to provide a transcript in the next post). Anyway, I did manage to get it written. Hitler had originally decided to do a cartoon entitled 'Skeith's Adventure's in South Africa' but then changed her mind and made a find-a-word instead. She was also the editor. She didn't do a lot of editing, though; at least, not that I saw. She did spend plenty of time reminding Skeith about the time he coloured his lips in with permanent marker ('It burns! It burns! And it won't come off!'), persuading our relief teacher to let us play the waka waka song over the classroom speakers, and explaining to me how the film 'I, Robot' was really a vehicle for anti-Communist propaganda. Lyssy did a gossip column. PC covered photography - he took pictures of all of us and then edited them so we had moustaches. It won't surprise anyone to know that Hitler was sieg-hailing in hers. Comet wrote up a crepe recipe. S-Man wrote a horoscope. Graziella did design. In fact, she designed S-Man's horoscope with a blue background and a number of artistically placed black splotches. S-Man wasn't overly thrilled with it. 'What's this? Did someone spill ink on it?' 

Ram had originally been going to do a review of the canteen. He surprised all of us when he announced 'Actually, I think I'm just going to try and write some French poetry instead.' I'm not sure if he finished or not, although we were all fairly keen to read some. I was, anyway. Frankly, anything is better than Aviator's poems, which is all the poetry I've read recently.

Aviator has recently discovered a talent of his for writing dirty limericks. I was with him in the library once when he showed me a page of five poems he'd written for Lyssy at her own request. I'd recount some of them here, but I want to keep a G-rated page - PG at the very most. Besides, most of them mention either his or her last name, and that would kind of go against the whole point of using nicknames. Anyway, Aviator decided to print them out and give them to her. So we printed them and headed over to wait by the printer. While we were there, a pair of Year Seven girls came over and collected several pages they'd printed out. Aviator and I waited for a little longer, but nothing more came out of the printer, so we decided there had probably been some technical error and went back to the computer to puzzle it out. While we were there, one of the Year Seven girls came over and tapped Aviator on the shoulder. 'Excuse me? This got mixed in with our printing. I think it's yours.'

The only thing funnier than her expression of distaste as she handed the poem sheet over was Aviator's face, with mixed relief - that it hadn't accidentally printed out on a teacher's printer - and horror. He handed the poems over to Lyssy and exited the library quickly, before anything else could happen (I left too, and so I can't describe what Lyssy's reaction to the poetry was, but I can imagine it).

There is a sequel to this incident: a couple of days later, I was talking to Peanut when I remembered that she was one of the few people I hadn't yet related the poetry story to. I was partway through when she went 'Oh, yes, I heard about that.'

'How? Did Aviator tell you?' I asked, surprised.

'No,' she replied. 'One of those Year Sevens was my sister.'

PE

Yes. The great moment has come. The moment I've been waiting for - well, basically for my entire school career.

I've had my last PE lesson.

There are some down sides, of course. No longer will I have the opportunity to fall off a bike in front of my entire PE class. I won't be able to run any more cross country practices, falling up hills (yes, up. If I have to injure myself, I'm not going to do it in a conventional way) and scarring my knee. Vyvyan will no longer be able to hit me in the shins with crosses. I won't play badminton with anyone, missing the serve five times in a row despite the fact that Falcon is actually standing next to me and explaining what I have to do. I won't have to go and get the table tennis balls after accidentally hitting them through the net - wait, did I write 'down sides'?

There is very little I'm going to miss about PE, from the freezing early morning changes to the moment at the end of school when I realise I've missed my bus because I had to stay behind and pack up the bocce balls, or whatever bizarre sport we were playing. For my last ever lesson (which I didn't realise WAS my last ever lesson until right at the end) we combined with another class and played soccer.

The first game I played, I was playing Klaus's team, so I just wandered around and talked to him. We occasionally took it in turns to move towards the ball when it was coming near us, and then moving back when it had been safely propelled out of range (usually by somebody else). Klaus explained to me his policy of trying to touch the ball once, on average, for each game. If he touched it twice in a game he was exempt for the next one. It was an interesting concept, and I was still considering it as a potential strategy when the whistle blew. For the second game I bade goodbye to Klaus, and went to playing Vyvyan's team. She explained to me that she had actually scored a goal in the previous game and I explained Klaus's theory to her. Not a lot of soccer-playing was done. In our third and final game, both Falcon and Wiggles were playing. On their own, they're not generally over-competitive people. When together, however, they seem to have this need to constantly tackle each other, do ridiculously long passes, and generally not get along. What made it particularly strange is that they were both on the same team.

We'd just begun the game when I noticed Sharona giving me a strange look. 'What is it?'

'Are you on my team, Leslie?'

'We've been playing together for the past three games, so yes, I think so.'

'That would explain a LOT,' Sharona said. 'I was wondering why I kept playing on the same field as you.'

Ah, yes. That's how much my friends are into soccer playing. It probably had something to do with the end of term as well. None of us are at our sharpest.

One of the examples of this, during this game, was when BBB, while attempting to get the ball as far from her team's goal as possible, accidentally kicked it so it went up and smacked Falcon in the face. He keeled over, moaning gently and rocking back and forth. We all gathered around.

'Are you all right?' someone asked worriedly. Falcon calmly stood up and brushed himself off. 'Yeah, I'm fine.'

'Then . . . what was all of that? The falling over?'

'That,' he said firmly, 'was for dramatic effect.'

And he ran off, with the ball. I happened to be in front of him, so I wandered up in the vague hope of stopping the ball. 'Go on, kick him in the shins!' yelled Wiggles hopefully. 'Really, it might be amusing.'

I would have had a go, but by that time the game had moved on.

Something else happened during that game which might have been my finest soccer-playing moment of all time, excepting that time in primary school when I was in goal (they'd learnt I couldn't play, so they put me somewhere I wouldn't have to run around much) and somebody tried to score, but they hit my knee instead, causing it to bounce off and look like I'd saved it. Falcon and Wiggles were about two metres away, each trying to tackle the other one in an attempt to score the goal. In the midst of this they'd managed to completely forget about the ball, and so I did the sensible thing: I ran up and kicked it (rather feebly, to be honest) to Tree, who was then able to pass it on. Soccer-playing history.

At the very end of the lesson Vyvyan ran up to me and attempted to hug me. Luckily I've become wise to her ways and managed to shake her off after a matter of minutes (Beartrap wasn't there to act as bodyguard). 'It's our last PE lesson ever!'

'Please don't do that right next to my ear - wait, is it really?'

'Yes! Backwards hi-five!'

(A backwards hi-five is what Vyvyan and I attempt to do after any great sporting moment. It might even work if either of us were remotely coordinated).

Anyway, never again do I have to don sporting garb and pretend to care about what everyone else is doing with a ball. Except for playing netball, of course. Apart from that, though I'm finally free.

Geography

Geography is, I think, unique among my subjects in that not only did they give us a non-assessable end-of-term assignment, they tried to make us care about it. We had to write a speech and then several groups would be selected to present. Peanut, Marie-Clare and I worked in a group of three to make a powerpoint about the people of Afghanistan (we were given the topic). When I tell you that we actually wrote our speech twenty minutes before the presentations were due to begin, you'll understand how unprepared we were.

I took drastic action on the way across to the lecture theatre and decided to pray that we weren't chosen. Not being religious, however, I didn't really have anyone to pray to. So Peanut and I created a new god - the God of Geography or, as we like to call him, the holy and all-powerful Boltssna.

Marie-Clare was perplexed by this, as was Giuseppe when we explained it to her. Klaus was intrigued. 'Boltssna? You've personified geography?'

'Yep,' Peanut told him. 'And his son's called Map.'

At any rate, something must have worked because we didn't have to give our presentation. And that, my friends, was my last ever Geography lesson. Perhaps if I'd thought to create something to help me through Geography earlier on in my school career, I'd be doing it next year. Or maybe not. I guess we'll never know.

Media

In Media, to commemorate the end of the year (and complete our assessment), we made films. They had to be 10 seconds long, have some form of twist at the end, and were virtually impossible to do. I'm sure this wasn't the case for everyone. It's just that I was working in a group of three. It was me, Apple - and Skeith. Apple had the idea, which was of someone running around, being chased by a ghost. The person running would be cornered into a dead end and the ghost would close in on them. At that point, we would cross to a shot of someone playing Pacman, and the viewer would suddenly realise that it was really just a game of Pacman, which had just been lost. It was a great idea in principle. In practice, it was a little hard to do.

Before filming, we had to find the costumes, i.e. the ghost's costume. You see, it's all very well to go 'I want a ghost to be in this film,' but what you're basically looking at is someone in a sheet. In this case, Apple in a sheet. We managed to find one in room 15 and a half (yes, it exists, look for it). Skeith got considerably tangled up in it before I dragged him, and it,  away. We were just about to begin filming when Apple objected to Skeith's appearance. 'I mean, he's been running. He has to look exhausted. Sweaty and tired and that kind of thing.'

His solution was to spray Skeith with water, something Skeith strenuously objected to. They spent a good ten minutes arguing about this, trying to attack each other with the sheet, locking each other in girls' toilets, etc. Eventually Apple got annoyed. 'OK, Skeith, we're not going to spray you with water, all right?' He wandered over to the bubbler to get a drink. Once he'd finished, Apple turned around and spat water into Skeith's face, thus giving the effect we'd wanted. Skeith didn't see it that way. I would have tried to help out somehow, but I'd unfortunately collapsed with laughter.

Somehow or other, despite numerous impediments - we couldn't find a dolly for a shot Apple wanted, so we put the camera on a wheelie chair instead - we managed to get to the editing stage. This film was actually worth part of our mark, so we wanted to do a good job (it should be mentioned that this whole project was actually a couple of weeks ago, before our grades were finished). Finally, we'd finished all but the final scene, of someone playing Pacman in the Media classroom. It took long enough for us to get our shot of the game screen - everyone else was getting annoyed by the constant Pacman noises - but then Skeith had his prima donna moment and refused to do it. I still don't know why he refused. Our pleas were all to naught. Finally, Falcon stepped in and did the final shot, which is basically just of somebody getting annoyed. And we were ready for the editing.

Editing is my forte in Media. 'Forte' in the sense that I'm not that good at it, but I'm better at it than at filming or planning or anything like that. Anyway, both Apple and Skeith seemed to think that I was better at it than them (or possibly they just weren't prepared to spend the next few lessons speeding each individual shot up by a tiny bit at a time in an attempt to fit it all in and still keep it within the time limit). Editing isn't a hard job, but it does require a lot of concentration. Which is a hard thing to get in our Media classroom.

In one instance, I was trying to find the place to fit in Apple's vertigo shot, which is the one he'd needed the wheelie chair for. Falcon had found a really small bicycle and was trying to ride it around the classroom. 'Hey - hey, Leslie, I'm staying on - no, wait. Let me have another go.'

'You're not going to be able to stay on,' I told him absently.

'Yes I am, look at this - no, the seat's too small. There's got to be a way around this . . .'

A few minutes later, and he'd found a way around it.

'Look! I have a chariot!'

'What do you mean, a chariot?' I asked, turning around. 'Oh. Right. A chariot.'

And it was a chariot, if you can call someone sitting on a wheelie chair while peddling a small bicycle in front of them a chariot. He rode around the tables for a bit then got bored.

'Hey, can somebody open that door?'

'Why?' I asked warily.

'I want to try riding it outside.'

And he did.

A focussed lot, my Media class (still, what can you expect from a class with three girls and twenty-one boys?).

It was a bit better when we actually finished all our projects and got to the point when we were watching films. Recently - actually, the day before yesterday - Jig came up to me and asked to conduct an experiment on me. Jig, too, has appeared in this blog before, but under the pseudonym of 'STUDENT 1' in my 'Not-So-Sweet 16' post. Anyway, I was a little suspicious, but agreed.

JIG (J): So, Leslie, will you give me something? Let's say, your jumper?

LESLIE (L): Um . . . I'm going to say no.

J: OK. Well, watch this.

(He undoes two buttons on his shirt before my horrified eyes)

J: Right. Now can I have your jumper?

L: NO!

J: Damn! Why does that work for girls and not for guys?

Wow, Jig. I have no idea.

RAVE

Ah, RAVE. The most pointless subject of all. Pointless, that is, unless you decide to become one of those Evangelical preachers whose only purpose in life is to make money out of their so-called flock. Like this guy.

Luckily, I haven't had any RAVE lessons in the past couple of weeks. It would be a blow to me if I had actually been studying to be a priest (I could be the leader of the church of Boltssna). As it is, I think I'll live.

And that concludes part 2 of my end-of-the-year special (now, if I can only find someone to pay me for it . . .). This year's over, and we have no idea what the next one will hold for us.

Actually, that's not true. I do have one idea about it:

So long as it doesn't contain Science, I'll be happy.

The Firstest Worstest Week

The first week of school is always a fun experience, especially if you take 'fun' to mean 'excruciatingly long' and experience to mean 'time during which I would rather be sawing off my own foot with a steak knife'. Five long, long days to get used to the idea of being back at school again. They don't even ease us into it. If a Formula One racing driver had a horrible accident while on the track, and woke up the next day crippled for life because of it, you wouldn't buy him a car as a get-well-soon present. Partly because Formula One racing drivers make far more than the likes of you or I and they should learn to buy their own damn cars. But mostly because it would be inhumane and bring back all kinds of messy, repressed memories that should really stay bottled up.
Now I've created that metaphor I can't remember exactly what point I was trying to make with it, but I'm sure it was an important one. All I meant to say was that we should be given time to get used to school, an hour a day for a couple of weeks, building up to the full seven hours around week nine or ten. Not thrown, struggling, into the deep end of the pool.
I don't like to get bogged down in metaphors (not after that first one, anyway), but in this case I don't think that applies, because for this week at least, school has been extraordinarily similar to a swimming pool. That is to say wet, cold, and filled with soggy people.
It's spring, for goodness' sake. Yet it poured with rain for three of the five days of our school week. Monday and Thursday were fine. The rest, not so much.
One of the more interesting side effects of rain - aside from the cold, damp, and generally wet-making aspects, which aren't interesting so much as irritating - is that it encourages all the worms, slugs and snails to come out from wherever they're hiding and grace the humans with their presence. Yes, nothing says 'spring rain' so much as a dying worm which has attached itself to the bottom of your shoe in a last, great effort and doesn't seem keen to be unstuck. It also encourages all kinds of different behaviour in people. In me, for example, when walking on pavement, I have to stop every two or three metres to rescue a snail which has strayed on to the path. Not because I like snails, I just hate the noise they make when they're stepped on. In fact, the only reason I move them is so I don't have to step on them when coming down the same path later in the day. This is surprisingly ineffective as snails are not the brightest of creatures and the time it takes them to travel back on to the exact same position on the path is almost always roughly equal to the amount of time it takes me to do whatever I was going on a walk for and come back to the snail. So I move them again, they move back again, and the cycle goes on.

This is nothing, however, to what these creatures do to Ness. Ness has a thing about worms. By which I don't mean that she is fond of them and actively seeks them out: more a kind of mortal terror situation. Vyvyan discovered this early on the Tuesday, and took no little pleasure from exploiting it. At one point, Ness, Giuseppe and Marie-Clare were chatting somewhere near our locker area. I went up to engage them in conversation (I was Vyvyan's decoy). Vyvyan then approached, cheerfully wielding a worm. Ness wears glasses, has quite poor vision, and was therefore not aware of the worm until it was within five centimetres of her face. She noticed it, let out a blood-curdling scream, and pelted away until she judged she was a safe distance from the creature (about five metres - although what would a worm actually do to you if you were less than five metres at you? Jump at you, fall into a puddle and get stepped on?). Giuseppe, who I hadn't realised didn't like worms (that is to say, she'd told me and I'd forgotten), did the same thing, but in the other direction. Marie-Clare remained in the middle, slightly unsure as to what had happened. Vyvyan collapsed, laughing, and I nearly did the same, despite trying my hardest to look like an innocent, oblivious victim. Yes, if you read this post without knowing who we are we sound like six-year-olds. I don't care. Fun for all ages.

Another thing that worms (or slugs, in this case - lovely) have revealed about my friends is Chinny's true nature. Virtually every day before school, Chinny and I are there before most other people. She does homework. If she doesn't have homework she does revision. If she doesn't have revision she studies sheet music. I hang around her and do incredibly witty things like pretending to speak a different language or think that her copy of Bach's Thirty-Second Prelude (or whatever it was called) is a copy of an adventure novel. You know, exciting, hilarious things like that. Anyway, on this morning - it must have been Thursday, as the SCARF INCIDENT (see below) happened on the same day - Chinny arrived slightly before I did. It had been raining the day before and presumably all the table were too wet for her to work on, as she had her books on top of a wall and was working there. The wall was bordering a garden - 'garden' in the school sense, that is to say a large pile of dirt with various shrubs and leaf-litter. I intended to go up and lean on the wall next to her, but was annoyed to find a small slug exactly where I wanted to put my elbow. I carefully rolled it off into the garden with a bit of stick and reclined on the wall. I looked up to discover Chinny staring at me reproachfully. 'Leslie!'

'What?'

'That was animal cruelty. You can't do that to slugs.'

'It was in the way!'

'Well, you could have leant somewhere else,' she said firmly, and picked up her books. I couldn't help being transfixed by something that had managed to climb on to the top of her science textbook. Chinny followed my gaze to see a giant slug crawling (or sliming, or whatever it is slugs do when they walk) along happily. She let out on ear-piercing scream (what with Ness, Giuseppe, and Chinny, I don't think my ears will ever be quite as they used to be) and flung the slug hard onto the concrete we were standing on, before backing away and giving it a disgusted look. After we'd all calmed down again (except the slug, who didn't look like it would be doing anything anytime soon), I looked at her meaningfully. From now on, her name is 'Double-Standards Chinny', or 'Disc' (for those who find it easier. I had to add the 'i' because it's incredibly hard to pronounce the work 'Dsc'. Really. Give it a go. Now. I don't care if anyone's watching you).

One of the less pleasant side effects of the rain - and believe me, worms aren't that pleasant, so that should tell you how bad this was - is that the ovals are now completely waterlogged. Not nice for walking over in the mornings, worse in the afternoons after it's been raining all day and the puddles are up to your ankles. But when it gets really bad is when you have to play lacrosse on said ovals.

For some time now I've been under the opinion that nothing, whether natural, manmade or Act of God, could possibly make my lacrosse-playing-skill worse than it is. Nope. Water, freshly mown grass (so that all the pieces are still lying around, looking like they're still attached), and me with a lacrosse stick are a combination made in either hell or perverse comedy writer's heaven. Add Vyvyan running around with her crosse confidently held at shin-level and you've pretty much got the idea as to what PE lessons have been like for me this week.

In fact, that's not the worst of it. You know what's worse than playing a sport you can't play on ground you're incapable of standing on with a homicidal crosse-wielding lunatic?

It's playing a sport you can't play on ground you're incapable of standing on with a homicidal crosse-wielding lunatic when people are taking pictures of it for the school book.

Luckily, the camerapeople seemed to have picked up the impression from somewhere that the most exciting thing to take pictures of in a game of lacrosse is the person who has the ball, and as my position in lacrosse is 'stay away from the action and it can't hurt you', I managed to avoid the worst of my failures being preserved on film.

In fact, Vyvyan was probably worse off in this case. She's actually quite a good player - well, better than me. Then again, you could just jam one of the sticks upright in the mud and would play lacrosse better than me. Anyway, she did get the ball enough that the camerapeople followed her on occasion. While there were plenty of good shots, somewhere, there is a picture of Vyvyan trying to throw the ball to someone across the field, throwing it up in the air instead, and then being hit in the back of the head with it. That might have been the high point of my lacrosse-playing career. Sadly.

In my year at school we recently received an exchange student from South Africa. She's made an exceptionally good impression on a friend of ours called Skeith. He's appeared in the blog before as 'STUDENT 2' in my 'Not-So-Sweet-16' post, when I couldn't think of a name for him. Luckily we were discussing name changes the other day in Media, and I discovered that his middle name is Keith, while his first initial is an S: S. Keith. Thus, 'Skeith' was born.

Anyway, Skeith has a number of clever ruses going to attract the attention of this exchange student. His first idea was feigning ignorance to anything she talked about, so that she would  be coerced into long explanations, giving him excuses to talk to her. After spending some time learning about what water polo is from her (he pretended to have confused it with lacrosse), he decided that a second idea would be in order. In this one, he decided to learn a lot of things instead to impress her with his knowledge. After I prevented him from using our Media computer to google 'South Africa', he decided to quiz me about it instead. 'Is it true that black South Africans don't exist?'

'No, Skeith, I think they exist.'

'You're wrong. They're imaginary, only white people live in South Africa.'

'I don't think that's right. There aren't as many of them, but they're there.'

'You're wrong.'

'No I'm not.'

'Yes you are.'

We went to the Wikipedia page for South Africa and scrolled down in an effort to find out if black South Africans existed or not. I pointed to one of the first pictures. 'That is a black South African, Skeith.'

He shrugged. 'No, that's a migrant.'

'What about those ones?'

'More migrants.'

'Well, how about -'

'No, they're all migrants.'

'They can't all be migrants!' I countered. He looked amazed. 'Of course not! The white ones aren't.'

I suggested that he try something else.

In that same Media lesson, we had resumed work on our project when Skeith had sudden doubts (we decided not to use the Drama students for our project, by the way, which was tricky as we'd already filmed some bits with a Drama student as the main character, a clown. So the clown swaps from being a Drama student to being Skeith halfway through the film. Saying that it looks tacky doesn't cover it). Anyway, Skeith nudged me and said 'Can I borrow your scissors?'

'Why?' I asked suspiciously. I haven't forgotten the time Vyvyan took my gluestick and used it to glue her socks up.

'Look at my hair at the back!' He spun around on the chair and showed me.

'What about it?'

'It's too long.'

'Well, cut it when you get home.'

'I can't. We have French after lunch and the exchange student is in our French class.'

'And?'

'If I cut it now, she'll never notice!' he enthused.

I was suspicious. 'You mean, you want to cut your hair at the back - without a mirror - with my scissors, to impress the exchange student?'

'That's it.'

I lent him the scissors, partly because I was interested to see if he'd go through with it.

He went through with it. Not a bad job, either, so far as I could tell, considering he couldn't see what he was doing. I'm not sure if the exchange student noticed or not, but our Media teacher certainly did. I won't go into that.

On the Thursday, I finally brought in the scarf I'd knitted for Falcon. I was confident - nay, certain - of its phenomenal powers of hideousness, the sheer clashing tastelessness of it all.

Therefore, I was quite put out upon Chinny's reaction to it (this was just several minutes after the DSC incident).

'It's pretty!' she exclaimed. 'I want a scarf just like it!'

I was shocked. How could she like the scarf?

'Well, I like that colour of green,' she admitted. 'And those pompoms look really soft.'

I charged her with wearing it, to see how much she liked it after everyone else commented on it. It didn't work. 'It's really comfortable too.'

It was quite funny to see how tactful people can be. 'That's . . . an interesting scarf, Chinny.'

'Leslie knitted it.'

'Ah. Well done, Leslie. It looks really . . . well done.'

I had to explain that I'd knitted it for the purpose of being horrible, which I'm not sure relieved anyone of the impression that I'm mentally ill, but at least reassured them that my taste isn't quite that bad.

Giuseppe and Marie-Clare's reactions were far closer to what I wanted. 'Oh, God, that's disgusting!' said Giuseppe after glimpsing it for the first time. Marie-Clare made a similar comment, but I can't remember what it was as she was laughing too hard. Aviator was extremely pleased with it. 'Give it to Falcon now, I want to see his reaction. We should catch it on video.'

Marie-Clare and Giuseppe acted as scarf bearers. On the way to Falcon we passed a friend of Marie-Clare's, Dancer, who is (it's only fair to say) fairly stylish. I swear he actually took a step back when we passed him with it, and the look of horror on his face would have photographed just as well as any of Falcon's.

When we did get the scarf to Falcon, there wasn't horror on his face so much as shock. 'I did tell you what to expect,' I said firmly.

'Yes, but I didn't realise there would be quite so many pompoms . . .'

He wore the scarf to half of Media (Media people are clearly far less tactful than most, as most of the scarf-related comments showed), then removed it for the rest of the day. DESPITE having promised - on a signed contract, no less! - to wear it for a whole day of school. I confronted him about it in Chemistry. 'Well, I didn't want it to get damaged in Woodwork,' he said guiltily.

Sure, Falcon. Because last time I checked, Woodwork didn't go for the whole day. Blog-readers, I know that a good few of you - Aviator, Marie-Clare, and Giuseppe, anyway - were interested in the progress of the scarf, and we can't let him get away with it. We need the other six-and-a-half periods of scarf wearing he promised in the contract. People of school, I'm relying on you.

Anyway, nothing brightens up the second week of school like a lime green/hot pink/pompom covered scarf. True fact.

Photograph courtesy of Phoenix, who is a close personal friend of He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named. Read her blog. All the cool wizards are doing it.

Harper vs. Schneider

Until now, all my posts have had a single author. Viz, me. Well, I think it's time for another one of my experiments. Some have been successful. Some have not. I'm not sure whether to hope that this is a success or a failure. If people like it, that's obviously a good thing. Then again, if they hate it, it means I won't have to write another one like this. No more textual arguing, no more fights over the keyboard . . .

Anyway, I leave you to make your own decision. As you may have realised by now - if not by the rather confused introduction, then by the title of this post - this post is unique in that it is co-authored by myself and Giuseppe. We had a RAVE lesson to fill, and no wish to do any work. What you are about to read is exactly what we had in the lesson, bar a couple of spelling mistakes I've corrected, and one or two instances in which I felt compelled to add notes, in order to make it clearer for all concerned. Giuseppe's bits will be in purple, my original bits in blue, and my notes in the customary (if unoriginal) black shade.

This is the result.

Greetings readers of Leslie M Harper’s fantastic blog! As you might have gathered by the few words that I have typed, that I am in fact, not Leslie M Harper - and you would be correct. Congratulations, you have gotten something right and can thus feel good about yourself. Pat yourself on the back and treat yourself to an ice cream. This is the infamous (thanks Leslie) Giuseppe L Schneider. My full name yes, but Leslie does not like referring to my by full name, can’t imagine why. Other than the blog’s writer, I am the only personage on this wonderful blog to have a full name.

Any who, as I type this most glorious blog post, we are at the scene of the occurrence of many cases of MBD – yes you observant and faithful blog readers, I am currently at the library, library west to be precise.

Let me set the scene. We are in religion class… naturally not one student is doing the allocated work except for the stereotypical nerd.

So as you’ve probably picked up by now, I’m not writing all of this post. Giuseppe is informing me that she’s already typed that. I DON’T CARE. She’s also berating me for my slow typing. Well, it was fine for you before.

I wasn’t berating you about your slow typing. I was merely voicing out aloud an observation that I had made. Is this a terrorist action? I think not.

It was beration, pure and simple. So yes, this is an act of procrastination. But it’s this or Googling zoophilia.

Don’t judge us kind people of the blogosphere. It was Gwen who brought it up in the first place. We’re just curious.

That makes it sound weird. We were looking up Utilitarianism, which is what we’re supposed to be doing, clicked on a link to Peter Singer, and from there to zoophilia. I’m still trying to clean my mind.

Moving on swiftly from the topic of zoophilia . . .

Stop taking over my blog or I’ll be forced to write it with Gwen or Chinny instead.

Never Leslie, you’ll never be rid of me. So dear blog readers, let me tell you a story of

At this point, Giuseppe paused for a long, long time, trying to remember the story she wanted to tell. I got bored and took the keyboard back.

Giuseppe has run out of ideas. Who else thinks her posts have a slightly patronising tone to them? Anyway, to move on to a subject I always find it easy to type freely about, Marie-Clare. I’ve planned her life story. She will marry 25, they will move to a caravan park and jknhbgv

If you want Marie-Clare's complete life story, read the previous post. I don't get much of a chance to type it out in this conversation. NB: Whenever you read nonsense words, such as the last word of the above paragraph, it means that one of us has wrested the keyboard from the other and begun hitting the keyboard randomly. Although I cannot claim to be completely innocent, it was mostly Giuseppe.

Alright, I’ve thought of something interesting to tell our dear readers. Including Leslie M Harper, the media students of this fine school are up to something. There is an evil and slightly disturbing scheme cooking up in the cauldron of our school.  This all started a couple of weeks ago, when tbvr

I didn’t know, when I agreed to write this post with you, you would start wrestling the keyboard from me. As I was saying. They will go to a caravan park, where Marie-Clare will work in the shop and 25 will mine for coal. All right, Giuseppe is complaining that I have fractured her finger (I had to get the keyboard away from her somehow) so she can have the keyboard back.

This all started a couple of weeks ago when

You’ve already done that bit.

You interrupted me mid-sentence. I was walking innocently and nonchalantly to Maths, when suddenly I hear a “Get out my way Giuseppe!” from Diamond. (He’s this guy in our year that I rarely talk to.) I wouldn’t have ignored him, if not for the fact that he was wearing a dress and a blonde wig and was running around holding a bunch of balloons. And then I see... oh crap, what did I see? I’ve forgotten. The point is, that the Media students of this fine school, with Leslie herself included, are dabbling in some cross-dressing and other kinds of impure activities.

That was the worst story telling of ALL TIME. Anyway, very few of us are cross-dressing. Most of us are just clown-dressing. It’s for the films we’re making. Giuseppe, I’m a slow typer. Get over it.

Well unless Diamond was doing his best Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie impression, I have no idea what you crazy messed-up Media students are doing. Us Art students on the other hand, are very civilised. In a typical lesson, Bob Dylan and

Giuseppe, you don’t have the right to give nicknames. That right resides with me and me alone. I have no idea what Tootsie is and I don’/]hrtbgynuh

Bob Dylan and Chowder tried to pull me away from the computer by the pulling on my wheelie chair, and then they proceeded to attempt to bind me to the chair with masking tape when I resisted. I pleaded for Shoelace to save me, but at no a*

Good luck getting Shoelace to do anything.

As I was about to get to before Leslie viciously pulled the keyboard from my grasp. As I was saying, I pleaded foe Shoelace to save me, but at no avail, becauser all she did was sit on my lap and rock back and forth while yelling. This didn’t do much except for amuse Bob Dylan and Chowder even more.

It certainly sounds pretty amusing. I would, however, like to make a point. You were trying to imply that Art students are CIVILISED compared to Media students. I think you just lost yourself the argument.

I was not attempting to be logical, but rather cynical. But thanks for that, you only had to dumb down the readers so that they now feel like retarded imbeciles.

What?

Anyway, those are the brilliant adventures of Leslie M. Harper and Giuseppe L Schneider in this boring, but productive RAVE Lesson.

First: still don’t get what you meant above. Second: I’m not sure they can be classified as ‘adventures’. For you, maybe, but none of these adventures involve me. Therefore, I resent you attaching my name to them.

You are a Media student are you not? Yes you are. My life is much more thrilling than yours Leslie, for one, I don’t spend entire weekends designing coats of arms instead of doing my English oral.

I did that English oral! I got a good mark! Anyway, it was less than an hour. I didn’t spend the whole weekend on my coat of arms. Not like you, who devotes great amounts of time to painting pictures of the sons of dead (albeit awesome) celebrities.

That is more productive, and I did it for you as a Christmas present. Po0/;

I swear that the last word above was made accidentally when I pulled the keyboard away. I mean, the keys are pretty near each other. Anyway, at this point we stopped for a good few minutes to laugh.

We thought I’d broken the keyboard there for a second, but luckily, no. Hopefully it still looks like we’re working. A

Well I was going to give it to you, but if you’re going to be like that I think that I might just decorate my own walls with it.

You do that.

Any who, great people of this blogosphere, the bell is about to go. Au revoir fair people. And good night, and good luck.

It’s my blog so I get the last say. I don’t normally have to say ‘goodbye’. People just generally know to stop reading when the post ends. And you accuse ME of ‘dumbing it down’?

ANU J WSBYV I’m just being polite.

I HAVE THE LAST WORD.

And thus a RAVE lesson was ended. What Giuseppe failed to take into account in this instance was that it is MY blog. I always get the last word.

Goodnight.

Not-So-Sweet Sixteen

I turned 16 on Tuesday (the 31st of August, for those of you who aren't so good with dates).

I'm allowed to marry. I can drive in certain parts of the world. This isn't terribly useful, as I can already drive. 'Can' in the sense of 'am allowed to', not as in 'am capable of'. The last time I tried to drive I drove into the tree in our driveway. There is now a fetching dent in the front of our car. The tree, however, as I'm sure you will be glad to know, is fine.

I'm not all that certain being allowed to marry is useful either. Obviously, I was married before. Lala could tell you that. Also any of the fifty trillion people who now read this blog (well, it seems like that many. The word is spreading). But now, it's legal. I'll have to be careful of what I say unless I want to end up in breach of promise cases, bitter divorce court battles or even alimony payments. Still, it might be useful. If ever the urge takes me to marry someone suddenly, I will now be allowed to (don't hang on for it, though). With parental consent, of course.

The day itself was not noticeably different to normal days, except that every so often someone would sprint up to me, embrace me, yell 'Happy Birthday!' and run away again. So, not all that similar to regular days, really. Ariane was probably the best example of this, hugging me for a good two minutes before I managed to get into Physics classroom. Thank you, Ariane. Here is a picture for you. I found it ages ago and have been looking for an excuse to use it. 

Only three people actually remembered in the morning. Ness, Vyvyan, and Giuseppe. Giuseppe gave me a card she'd made the previous night. It was a blue piece of paper with a picture of me drawn on the front, and a caption saying 'HAPPY BIRTHDAY LESLIE M. HARPER'. On the inside it said:

'Dear Leslie M. Harper,

Joyous anniversary of your birthday. If it were not for you, we would not have an awesome blog to read, or numerous rants about Stephen Fry. Happy 16th ;)!

Love,

Giuseppe'

It's nice to be appreciated.

It did confuse me for a little, mostly as I hadn't realised the cartoon on the front was of me until Giuseppe pointed it out. I believe her very words were 'It's you. I made you look like John Travolta from Pulp Fiction. Anyway, happy birthday.'

Chinny didn't remember, but she's probably not to blame for this as I spent a good ten minutes trying to convince her she'd recently flown to the moon in a hot air balloon. It's hard enough remembering things without people attempting to convince you that you haven't seen them for a year (that being the length of time it takes to fly to the moon).

Word had spread by about recess time, so I wasn't sure who had remembered and who hadn't. Peanut informed me that she was going to make me a birthday cake. I thanked her and forgot about it. She actually turned up with the cake two days later. It was chocolate, and she'd decorated the top with fruit loops (as in, the cereal). She claimed they spelled out something. When none of us could see it, she pointed out, visible only to the trained eye, the words 'HAPPY LES' (yes, it didn't actually say that - my real name not being Leslie - but it would be quite pointless if I actually told you what my name is now. Almost everyone who reads this blog knows my real name, anyway).

Anyway, the actual day was quite ordinary. Media was quite exciting. And by exciting I mean excruciatingly painful. Let me set the scene:

Three Media students (myself and two others) are attempting to work on a group project with Drama students (six of them, including Peanut). It is a windy day. We are making a short film involving a balloon seller on the oval. Wide open space + wind + balloons = unsuccessful film. The balloons escaped nine separate times. Not counting when one of the sticks broke. Or when I accidentally let all of the air out of the crucial black balloon. I quickly took the role of Personnel manager, leaving the other two Media students to manage the camera.

STUDENT 1 (1): Look after this camera.

STUDENT 2 (2): OK.

Both students wander off. Camera falls over.

1: I told you to look after the camera!

2: I wasn't doing anything!

1: Well, you should have been looking after the camera! Go and hold the balloons.

Student 2 holds the balloons, then releases them to their freedom on the oval. Drama student runs and retrieves them.

2: Sorry about that. I'll hold them properly this time.

It happens again.

2: Well, I'll hold on to them properly now.

And again. Balloons are confiscated from student 2 and given to one of the drama students instead.

1: Well, you don't have the balloons any more. Can you please look after the camera while I talk to the Drama students?

A brief pause, then student 2 comes up and attempts to get student 1's attention.

1: What is it now?

2: Something's fallen out of the camera!

It didn't really improve after that. The only filming that occurred was the video one of the Drama students took on her phone, watching us fail in an epic manner.

I had netball after school, so I hung around in the library and pretended to be working on my English essay, while reading Giuseppe's copy of the play she was studying. I had to stop this when she wrested it from my grasp and sat on it (so I'll never know what happens in the end), so I went to help Shoelace with some pages she was photocopying instead. MBD is afflicting even more people than before, possibly because I devoted a whole post to it. There are some good effects, some bad. The best example of this is the Hugh Laurie poster in the library. I pointed it out to Marie-Clare and Giuseppe as we were passing it yesterday. Giuseppe was disappointed; for some reason, she was convinced that I'd written about a poster of Stephen Fry. Please. Not everyone I write about is Stephen Fry. I doubt he appears in more than three-quarters of my posts. Anyway, Marie-Clare supported the showing-respect-to-the-poster campaign by kissing it. It was touching. And more than a little disturbing. Giuseppe was less respectful. She kindly enough narrated what she was doing, 'So you can write it on your blog. I'm extending a certain finger on one of my hands - and now the other hand - and now I'm moving both hands up and down repetitively at the poster. Take that, Hugh Laurie!'

I think her mind's going. I'm under the opinion that she did this in order to take revenge on me. Earlier, she'd been trying to read me a picture book (can't remember why. There probably wasn't a reason) and I'd interrupted. So she made me stand in the corner for fifteen minutes. It's only too likely that she may attempt this so-called punishment on others. And so, here is one of my handy Leslie M. Harper Survival Guides™:

The Leslie M. Harper Survival Guide™:

What To Do When You've Been Placed In A Corner By A Deranged 16-Year-Old Who Refuses To Let You Out

#1. The most important thing that you DO NOT PANIC. Firstly, assess your surroundings. As your attacker is likely affected by MBD, I will assume you are in a library. The first step is to attempt escape. If your captor has forgotten about you, this will be easy. In fact, people have probably been wondering exactly why you've been standing in a corner with no one else present. Stroll casually out of the library. If your captor is standing near you but you can see the exit, make a run for it. You may wish to cause a diversion at this point. How you do it is up to you. A casual sentence such as 'My goodness, is that a T-rex over there? It appears to be coming straight for this corner' works well. If you're unable to think of an appropriate verbal attention-grabber, a swift kick on the ankle and a sprint to the exit is just as effective. If this doesn't work, or, as it was in my case, you have been wedged into the corner facing the wall, move on to #2.

#2. If you are, as I have assumed, in a library, this means that you have been placed in a corner made by (a) a bookshelf and a wall, or (b) two walls. If the case is (a), move on to #3. If the case is (b), go straight to #4.

#3. If a bookshelf is within your reach, as it was in my case, you may want to pull a book from the shelf and attempt to hit your captor with it. This will either (a) defeat them or (b) enrage them. If (a) is the case, you're fine. Stroll casually out of the library (or run casually, depending on how hard you hit your former captor with the book), making sure to salute any posters on the way. If the case is (b), book-hitting is probably no longer an option. In this case, move on to #4.

#4. If no potential weapons are within your reach, now is the time to look for potential allies. Do not worry about embarrassing yourself. Face it. You're standing in a corner next to an enraged girl prodding you uncomfortably whenever you attempt to move. You have no dignity. Scream for help. If an ally - such as, in my case, Marie-Clare and Peanut - does appear, encourage them to use brute force to get you out. If they are able to pry you away from your captor, stroll towards the exit (casually. Always casually). Otherwise, move on to #5.

#5. If you are on this step, I will assume that either (a) brute force has failed but your allies are still present or (b) it has failed and your allies have disappeared or been incapacitated. If (a) is the case, move on to #6. If it is (b) move on to #7.

#6. Brute force has not worked. Cunning may. Get your ally to so annoy your captor they, too, are forced into a corner. When Marie-Clare had spent some time hitting Giuseppe with books (it's becoming rather a habit with her), Giuseppe pushed her into the corner opposite mine. If I'd taken the above-mentioned course of action, by strolling (casually) towards the exit, I expect I would have made it. As is, I attempted to sneak quietly into the next row of bookshelves. Giuseppe noticed and I was soon recaptured and shoved into a new corner, similar to the previous one insofar as it was just as hard to get out of. The only difference was that in the new corner, I was immediately next to a glass door, through which I could see my tutor chatting to a different teacher. Despite frenzied gestures, she completely ignored my plight. Call this pastoral care?

#7. Your allies have been incapacitated. Marie-Clare's attempt to save me had failed. Peanut had collapsed to the floor laughing some time previously. Note to those who are in this situation: Peanut cannot be counted on as an ally. She is of no more practical use in desperate situations than a piece of scenery. At this point, your escape attempts have all failed. In the interests of preventing serious harm from coming to yourself - also, by this time there are likely only five minutes until the time of your release, the end-of-lunch bell - it may be sensible to simply wait. Do not converse with your captor. They're unlikely to be moved by your pleading, and you may accidentally impart some crucial information. I'm not sure what kind of crucial information you're hoping to conceal, but it's unlikely you want your captor to find it out, no matter what it is. If your captor does not attempt to engage you in conversation, fine. Simply wait for your release, at which point you will stroll casually towards the exit, or until hostage negotiations are opened. If they are attempting to talk to you, move on to #8.

#8. Things are urgent. Do not, under any circumstance, be moved into having a conversation with your captor. They have you trapped in a corner. Whenever they try to converse with you, simply state 'I can't hear you. I'm in a corner'. If they become so irritated with this they release you, congratulations! You have succeeded. Stroll casually and unconcernedly towards the exit, looking as if this type of thing is part of your every-day routine. At any rate, the bell will shortly go. Simply stand in your corner and pretend you don't know your captor. This may preserve some of your dignity. It's unlikely to, though. If you are at this stage, move on to #9.

#9. The bell has gone. You are released. Stroll casually past your captor to the exit.

I hope the guide is of use to you. I do apologise for that phenomenal, completely unrelated tangent I just tripped happily off on. Back to my birthday. I discovered Shoelace photocopying several pages from an art book. This may be a case of MBD, or it may just be Shoelace's natural vagueness. But somehow, when it asked her how many copies she wanted, instead of '1' or '2', she typed '447'. I found her at about copy #12, frantically trying to stop the machine. With Marie-Clare's help, we managed to stop the machine and restore normality. We disposed of the extra copies. I was still concerned about the photocopier - it's not every day it's asked to print out nearly 500 copies - so I tried photocopying something myself, when Marie-Clare had gone. I tried to find a book with a picture of Richard Hammond on the front, on the basis that if the photocopier did break, and printed out the remaining 435 copies, I could always give the pictures to Marie-Clare. Richard Hammond is one of her numerous loves. Giuseppe and I recently tried to act out their potential marriage ceremony. I was being Richard Hammond. Marie-Clare was unimpressed to find me kneeling down, claiming that this would make me closer to his actual height. What can I say, Marie-Clare? The man's short. I'm fairly sure he's already married, as well. And he's about three times your age.

Anyway, I couldn't find a book by Richard Hammond, so I grabbed the closest book and photocopied that instead. It turned out to be a large picture of Hitler. And this would have been fine had the photocopier not done as I'd predicted it would, and tried to finish its enormous photocopying load with my Hitler picture. We managed to make it stop after it had produced ten copies. We were forced to dispose of these in the recycling bin. There are few things in life as disconcerting as opening a recycling bin and seeing ten pairs of Hitler-eyes, staring up at you, as I discovered several minutes later when, having forgotten about them, I went to throw something away.

The rest of my birthday passed passably. It took me about three tries to blow out the candles on my cake. What can I say? Sixteen candles! What happened to the good old days when there were ten or less? And my dad was convinced that the generic 'Happy Birthday' tune was no longer appropriate, and played a completely different song on the guitar while everyone else was trying to sing normally. For my birthday I got:

1. An iPod. Whenever I tell people this, they always go 'Really? What kind is it?'

To which I reply: 'It's blue.'

They normally respond by saying 'Yeah, you're funny. Really, what type is it?'

Well, I DON'T KNOW. I'm sorry. I'm not a technological person. It's blue. That's all I know.

Also, people, here's a heads-up. I'm not funny in person. I don't know how I occasionally manage to make people laugh by writing things, and it's great that happens, but really. If you think I'm making a joke when you're talking to me, no. I'm just ignorant.

2. One heck of a lot of Stephen Fry books. I'll be quoting from them for the next year.

3. BBC radio comedy. Wahay! So far, the only thing I've used my iPod for is to listen to 'That Mitchell & Webb Sound', series 1. Is that a waste? Probably.

4. Anchovies. No, Giuseppe, not capsicums. I really like anchovies. I really, really like them. Can there be more joy in life than eating anchovies on toast while reading Stephen Fry and listening to Mitchell & Webb on a blue iPod? I think not.

Although if you disagree, I'd be grateful for your suggestions. I'm fully aware of how sad my life is.

All I need now is Andrew Hansen, preferably carrying some form of confectionary, to complete the list of ideal gifts. There's a gift suggestion for my next birthday. Only four more birthdays, and I'll be half his age. Wahay! I think it's time to finish with some gratuitous photos. There can be no better way to conclude a 16th birthday. And yes, my actual birthday was several days ago. But that's no reason to ruin this golden finishing technique.